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Nine consignments for Barauni refinery -- Despite bottlenecks, NW1 floats ODCs

Santanu Sanyal

THE authorities of Indian Oil Corporation's Barauni refinery, Samsung, the Korean industrial conglomerate, and others heaved a sigh of relief recently when nine packages of overdimensional cargoes (ODCs), required for the refinery's expansion programme, arrived at the site without any major hitch.

Contrary to the general perception that the inland water transport system in the country leaves much to be desired, certain stretches of the Hooghly-Bhagirathi-Ganga river system, known as the National Waterways Number 1, were used to transport ODCs as i t was found most suitable for the purpose.

The consignments were loaded in barges at the Calcutta Dock System (CDS) and unloaded at Simaria Ghat on the banks of the Ganga in Bihar, covering a distance of about 750 km. From Simaria Ghat, the site is 11 km by road.

Although Samsung got the contract from IOC for supplying the project cargoes, it subcontracted the jobs to both foreign and Indian firms. The largest of the nine ODCs weighed 520 tonnes. There were five packages weighing more than 200 tonnes. Two of the packages, including the heaviest one, arrived from Italy, while others came mainly from the western region. The suppliers of these packages were L&T Hazira and Godrej. At least one package was more than 60 metres long. So these packages could not have be en transported, other than by the river route.

Six barges were deployed to carry the ODCs, five of them with a capacity of 600 tonnes each and one of 500 tonnes. Three of the barges were supplied by the Assam Government's IWT Department, and one each by Central Inland Water Transport Corporation (CIW TC), N. S. Gazdar and Eastern Dredgers. The barges made eight trips, and the whole operation was completed within two months.

But then it will be wrong to presume that transportation of the ODCs by the river route was trouble-free. While the navigability of the river was alright, with an average draft of 1.8 metres being available between Calcutta and Farakka, the problem of dr aft was encountered beyond Farakka.

J. M. Baxi & Co, the firm responsible for the transportation of the cargoes, took up the matter with the Inland Waterways Authority of India. A special dredging operation was undertaken to improve the navigability at certain points of the river to enable the barges to move on with their loads.

At Simaria Ghat, there was no facility to unload such huge packages. J. M. Baxi, therefore, had to construct a special jetty to facilitate unloading. Since there were no cranes, the roll-on-roll-off system was used by operating hydraulic trailers.

The Assam IWT Department, too, helped by providing the `flats', which are floating platforms fitted with mechanical devices. The Department had got five flats constructed to facilitate unloading of ODCs for the Numaligarh refinery. These flats can be shi fted within the river, depending on its varying water level. Since the water level in the Brahmaputra varies with seasons, these flats came handy.

Three of the flats were moved by tugs from Assam to Bihar via West Bengal to help unloading of the ODCs. After unloading, one of them has gone back to Assam, and the other two will soon follow.

For J. M. Baxi, it was yet another feather in the cap. Earlier, it transported by the river route larger volumes of project cargoes for the Numaligarh refinery. The consignments arrived both from within the country and outside. But the job was more diffi cult. The distance from Kolkata to Numaligarh by river is nearly 1,800 km, of which 900 km in is Bangladesh.

The company requisitioned 12 barges, all from CIWTC, but the results were not satisfactory. The cargoes were required to be unloaded on the Dhansiri, a tributary of the Brahmaputra. And, the Dhansiri remains dry for nearly five months a year. As a result , some of the packages were detained for nearly 10 months.

Pic.: Overdimensional cargo for the Barauni refinery of Indian Oil Corproation being loaded on to barges at the Calcutta docks.